1794] ELLIOT AND MOORE IN CORSICA 43

believe, an inn, where they brought us figs, oranges, &c. The room was immediately filled with the people of the place, their muskets, without which they never move, slung over their shoulders. As soon as mules could be procured for our baggage, Signor Leonati conducted us to his house upon a hill two miles from the shore. A guard of about twenty of the inhabitants attended us. They expressed much pleasure at seeing us, and great love for the English nation, who, they hoped, would deliver them from the French. When we approached Leonati's house, or rather castle, muskets were discharged from the windows, and our attendants also kept up a very hot fire in return, loading as they went on, till we arrived at the gate, where a number of the people from the village huzza'd, calling " Buoni Inglesi," &c. The windows are barricaded. The French post of Calvi is only about three or four leagues off. We walked till dinner could be made ready, attended again by a guard. The country is mountainous and wild, the valleys fertile, whilst the tops of the hills are covered with snow. The only tree is the olive; oil is the staple of this part of the island. We found on our return to the castle Leonati's wife and mother-in-law; we dined and passed the evening with them; they had never been out of Corsica. Nothing could exceed their hospitality, their manners simple and unaffected. We are to set out before daylight to-morrow for Morato, thirty miles from this. General Paoli is there. The Corsicans are in possession of the whole island, except the posts upon the coast of St. Fiorenzo, Bastia, and Calvi, which are occupied by the French. Leonati says that, including disaffected Corsicans, their force in those three places does not exceed 2600 men, viz., in St. Fiorenzo, 700; Bastia and a post communicating between it and St. Fiorenzo, 1400; Calvi, 500. All that is wanted, he says, is a few cannon to drive them from there.

H.M.S. "VICTORY," 2%th January.—We proceeded on the morning of the 15th on our road to Morato ; the road was so bad and so very hilly that it was dusk before we reached Pietra Alba, five leagues from Leonati's house (Monticello). The